It is. That's why it's one of the most common combination of styles for MMA fighters. That being said, I don't know how old you are. If you're still in high school or even younger: wrestling. Get good, live grappling training for free, then you can take a striking art of your choice to supplement it. If money is a big factor: boxing. Cheap, effective, widely available.

Edit: Obviously, that won't give you the kicking you crave... but alive over compliant training every time.

Quoted for emphasis. Here in the US, your chance of having to defend yourself against someone with actual skills has a high probability of that person having wrestled. Sadly, most countries do no offer wrestling at the youth level in school sports.

The majority of fights end up on the ground. Can't give you any statistics, but being over fifty and having seen many, that's my experience.

You seem to be placing an over emphasis on kicking skills. Good hands are, I'll say, more important. If you can find a good kickboxing school, you'll get both.

Most important is the training methodology. Get yourself into a place that trains against resisting opponents. The vast majority of TKD/HKD/TSD dojangs will not give you this. Been there, done that with all three.

You don't give your age, but if I had it to do all over again, I'd have started judo long ago. If you can find a good kickboxing school, try it out. It's a good sport and you'll learn much.

thank you very much wetware and hungryjoe, and everyone else who has contributed positive feedback to this thread. I will look into the kyokushin school and see if it is right for me. I'd like to apologize for my "disrespect" of bjj, i just don't think it's the right choice for what I want out of martial arts. the most important aspect I want out of my training is real world application. I do not intend on starting any barfights, I'd definitely want to talk my way out of it or just walk away. I just want to be ready in case someone is intent on beating me to a pulp or killing me.

thank you very much wetware and hungryjoe, and everyone else who has contributed positive feedback to this thread. I will look into the kyokushin school and see if it is right for me. I'd like to apologize for my "disrespect" of bjj, i just don't think it's the right choice for what I want out of martial arts. the most important aspect I want out of my training is real world application. I do not intend on starting any barfights, I'd definitely want to talk my way out of it or just walk away. I just want to be ready in case someone is intent on beating me to a pulp or killing me.

No worries. If you don't want to do BJJ, that's cool. Judo's also cheap and widely available. I just prefer not to see anyone who doesn't appear to be a toolshed waste time and money on martial arts training that's ineffective. Most of us here have been down that road at one point or another. Funny thing about that, though, is that unless you were taught total BS, you find that SOME of what you were taught at the ineffective place is actually useful, they just trained it in a crap manner. But without ditching the crap training all you'll ever get is crap results.

I just watched a video with Ewerton Teixeira, and he makes Kyokushin look like a pretty good kicking oriented karate style. the Kyokushin school you posted is a little out of my range, but if you think they can get me to that kind of level of skill, the gas cost would be worth it. that being said I'd like to know more about top level gym, i can't find any reviews for it, so I'm kind of leery.

thank you very much wetware and hungryjoe, and everyone else who has contributed positive feedback to this thread. I will look into the kyokushin school and see if it is right for me. I'd like to apologize for my "disrespect" of bjj, i just don't think it's the right choice for what I want out of martial arts. the most important aspect I want out of my training is real world application. I do not intend on starting any barfights, I'd definitely want to talk my way out of it or just walk away. I just want to be ready in case someone is intent on beating me to a pulp or killing me.

BJJ is filled with real world application. I believe someone here mentioned how most fights end up on the ground. BJJ detractors argue that you don't want to be on the ground for various reasons (knives, multipe enemies, ect) but don't realize the fact that BJJ is one of the best arts for teaching avoidance of being taken down and how to get back up quickly if you unexpectedly find yourself on the ground. Other arts that ignore the ground will do nothing for you if you get taken down.

If you aren't interested in BJJ fine, do Judo. If you want real world application don't ignore groundwork because in the real world you'll need it.

BJJ detractors argue that you don't want to be on the ground for various reasons (knives, multipe enemies, ect) but don't realize the fact that BJJ is one of the best arts for teaching avoidance of being taken down and how to get back up quickly if you unexpectedly find yourself on the ground.

This, and also people seem to ignore the fact that not every fight involves seven people attempting to stab you to death. Sometimes, a trip followed by a pin is the appropriate level of force. It’s not necessarily a good idea to fill your toolbox with weapons spanning only the range from “traumatic concussion” to “death”.